After posting yesterday evening, “What is your Pre-Workout Meal?” A few individuals asked me to post information about having a post workout meal! Well here you go!

Recovery plays an important role during your exercise routine. Post workout drinks and foods are an integral part affecting the replenishment of your glycogen stores within the muscle, the effects on muscle fatigue, and tissue repair that can allow you to train more effectively. Many individuals not only lack a pre-workout plan but also a post-workout plan. Proper nutrition is very important to maintain these glycogen stores so muscles will have plenty of time to rest and recover between exercise bouts. If you are an athlete who needs to maximize your body’s performance while you’re exercising, you must replenish the nutrients lost via exercise through your dietary intake.

The best way to promote these glycogen stores is to consume carbohydrate rich foods. (Uh Oh… did I just say Carbohydrates??) For those who are trying to lose weight, you may be on a calorie (Carbohydrate) restricting diet, therefore hearing anything Carbohydrate is the last thing you want to hear. For my endurance athletes and sports performance athletes… *** PAY ATTENTION!!! *** Research shows that combining protein with carbohydrate within 30 minutes of exercise nearly doubles the insulin response, which results in more stored glycogen within the muscle. Translation: Athletes who refueled with carbohydrate and protein post workout, had much greater muscle glycogen stores than those who only ate carbohydrate alone. From a performance standpoint, the more fuel your body has to access within the muscle during a given competitive event or training session, the resulting side effect will be increased endurance and strength to better maximize performance and muscle efficiency to perform longer and harder.

Protein + Carbs

Ok Reggie, how about if I don’t consider myself to be an athlete? My goal is to strictly burn the body fat that I have on me! Can I just stick to protein and veggies!? … My answer Yes and No. Let’s not forget that Vegetables and Fruit are also carbohydrates! Do not be so consumed about the word carbohydrates, because the truth is that carbohydrates are the most effective and efficient source for energy when exercising! The less you have in your diet, you may find your desire to exercise drastically decreased or lower than expected. It’s also important to understand the effect it can have on building and maintaining muscle. The combination of protein and carbs post workouts stops the breakdown of muscle and results in the maintenance and building of your lean mass! For all my weight loss iCardioFiT exercisers out there, this increases your resting metabolism which allows you to burn more calories/day.

However, the question you should be asking yourself is can I be at an optimum HEALTH status being overweight? Having a BMI of 25 -29.9 places you in the Overweight category. While being in the 30 + range categorizes you at OBESE. By being Overweight/Obese places you at RISK for certain syndromes like high blood pressure, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely want everyone to achieve there optimum aerobic capacity at whatever weight you’re at, because it help reduce your risk of Heart Disease, but how does your blood lipid profile look like? Reducing your risk from Very high risk to High risk still places you at a disadvantage in having complete control of your health.

How’s your total cholesterol, LDL, Triglycerides, and HDL‘s looking like? Being responsible and realizing the importance of “Knowing your numbers” like one of my colleagues, Cardiologist Dr. Theodore Feldman would say; Knowing your numbers will allow you to take control of your current health status and will allow to makes the necessary life style changes to improve your health.

So while you have your iCardio sessions, combine them with those iCardioFiTFoods to not only keep your current level of conditioning up but to incorporate healthy nutritional options that can better your health and power/fuel your workout!